He walked up to the men. “Is your mistress here?”

“I am afraid not, Your Grace,” one of them said. “She went to visit Allmother for the afternoon.”

Allmother, Lightsong thought. Another with Lifeless Commands. Blushweaver’s doing? Perhaps he would drop by later—he missed chatting with Allmother. She, unfortunately, hated him violently. “Ah,” Lightsong said to the guard. “Well, regardless, I need to inspect the corridor just inside here, where the attack happened the other night.”

The guards glanced at each other. “I . . . don’t know if we can let you do that, Your Grace.”

“Scoot!” Lightsong said. “Can they forbid me?”

“Only if they have a direct command to do so from Mercystar.”

Lightsong looked back at the men. Reluctantly, they stepped aside. “It’s perfectly all right,” he told them. “She asked me to take care of things. Kind of. Coming, Scoot?”

Llarimar followed him into the corridors. Once again, Lightsong felt an odd satisfaction. Instincts he hadn’t know he had drove him to seek out the place where the servant had died.

The wood had been replaced—his Heightened eyes could easily tell the difference between the new wood and the old. He walked a little farther. The patch where the wood had turned grey was gone as well, seamlessly replaced with new material.

Interesting, he thought. But not unexpected. I wonder . . . are there any other patches? He walked a little further and was rewarded by another patch of new wood. It formed an exact square.

“Your Grace?” a new voice asked.

Lightsong looked up to see the curt young priest he had spoken with the day before. Lightsong smiled. “Ah, good. I was hoping that you would come.”

“This is most irregular, Your Grace,” the man said.

“I hear that eating a lot of figs can cure you of that,” Lightsong said. “Now, I need to speak with the guards who saw the intruder the other night.”

“But why, Your Grace?” the priest said.

“Because I’m eccentric,” Lightsong said. “Send for them. I need to speak to all of the servants or guards who saw the man who committed the murder.”

“Your Grace,” the priest said uncomfortably. “The city authorities have already dealt with this. They have determined that the intruder was a thief after Mercystar’s art, and they have committed to—”

“Scoot,” Lightsong said, turning. “Can this man ignore my demand?”

“Only at great peril to his soul, Your Grace,” Llarimar said.

The priest eyed them both angrily, then turned and sent a servant to do as Lightsong asked. Lightsong knelt down, causing several servants to whisper in alarm. They obviously thought it improper for a god to stoop.

Lightsong ignored them, looking at the square of new wood. It was larger than the other two that had been ripped up, and the colors matched far better. It was just a square patch of wood that was just a slightly different color than its neighbors. Without Breath—and a lot of it—he wouldn’t even have noticed the distinction.

A trapdoor, he thought with sudden shock. The priest was watching him closely. This patch isn’t as new as the other ones back there. It’s only new in relation to the other boards.

Lightsong crawled along the floor, deliberately ignoring the door in the floor. Once again, unexpected instincts warned him not to reveal what he’d discovered. Why was he so wary all of a sudden? Was it the influence of his violent dreams and imagery from the painting earlier? Or was it something more? He felt as if he were dredging deep within himself, pulling forth an awareness he had never before needed.

Either way, he moved on from the patch, pretending that he hadn’t noticed the trapdoor, and was instead searching for threads that might have been caught on the wood. He picked up one that had obviously come from a servant’s robe and held it up.

The priest seemed to relax slightly.

So he knows about the trapdoor, Lightsong thought. And . . . perhaps the intruder did as well?

Lightsong crawled some more, discomforting the servants until the men he had requested were assembled. He stood—letting a couple of his servants dust off his robes—then walked over to the newcomers. The hallway was growing quite crowded, so he shooed them back out into the sunlight.

Outside, he regarded the group of six men. “Identify yourselves. You on the left, who are you?”

“My name is Gagaril,” the man said.

“I’m sorry,” Lightsong said.

The man flushed. “I was named after my father, Your Grace.”

“After he what? Spent an unusual amount of time at the local tavern? Anyway, how are you involved in this mess?”

“I was one of the guards at the door when the intruder broke in.”

“Were you alone?” Lightsong asked.

“No,” said another of the men. “I was with him.”

“Good,” Lightsong said. “You two, go over there somewhere.” He waved his hand at the lawn. The men looked at each other, then walked away as indicated.

“Far enough that you can’t hear us!” Lightsong called at them.

The men nodded and continued.

“All right,” Lightsong said, looking back at the others. “Who are you four?”

“We were attacked by the man in the hallway,” one of the servants said. He pointed at two of the others. “All three of us. And . . . one other. The man who was killed.”

“Terribly unfortunate, that,” Lightsong said, pointing at another section of the lawn. “Off you go. Walk until you can’t hear me anymore, then wait.”

The three men trudged off.

“And now you,” Lightsong said, hands on hips, regarding the last man—a shorter priest.

“I saw the intruder flee, Your Grace,” the priest said. “I was watching out a window.”

“Very timely of you,” Lightsong said, pointing at a third spot on the lawn, far enough from the others to be sequestered. The man walked away. Lightsong turned back to the priest who was obviously in charge.

“You said that the intruder released a Lifeless animal?” Lightsong asked.

“A squirrel, Your Grace,” the priest said. “We captured it.”

“Go and fetch it for me.”

“Your Grace, it’s quite wild and—” He stopped, recognizing the look in Lightsong’s eyes, then waved for a servant.

“No,” Lightsong said. “Not a servant. You go and get it personally.” The priest looked incredulous.

“Yes, yes,” Lightsong said, waving him away. “I know. It’s an offense to your dignity. Perhaps you should think about converting to Austrism. For now, get going.”

The priest left, grumbling.

“The rest of you,” Lightsong said, addressing his own servants and priests. “You wait here.”

They looked resigned. Perhaps they were growing accustomed to him dismissing them.

“Come on, Scoot,” Lightsong said, walking toward the first group he had sent off onto the lawn—the two guards. Llarimar scurried forward to keep up as Lightsong took long strides over to the two men. “Now,” Lightsong said to the two, out of earshot of the others, “tell me what you saw.”

“He came to us pretending to be a madman, Your Grace,” one of the guards said. “He sauntered out of the shadows, mumbling to himself. It was just an act, though, and when he got close enough, he knocked us both out.”

“How?” Lightsong asked.

“He grabbed me around the neck with tassels from his Awakened coat,” one of the men said. He nodded to his companion. “Knocked him in the stomach with the hilt of a sword.”

The second guard raised his shirt to show a large bruise on his stomach, then cocked his head to the side, showing another one on his neck.

“Choked us both,” the first guard said. “Me with those tassels, Fran with a boot on his neck. That’s the last thing we knew. By the time we awoke, he was gone.”

“He choked you,” Lightsong said, “but didn’t kill you. Just enough to knock you out?”

“That’s right, Your Grace,” the guard said.